This Weekend's Fixtures & Midwek Fixtures (29/30 Nov/01/03/04/05 Dec)

[HCZ_Reborn]

No I don't. I have explained my basis.


I hope you're right, obviously.


That may be true but there's the issue in being 9 points off the top, every game becomes a must win.

Ok your basis is a league table, a league table will tell you what has happened but nothing about the how or why.


Or indeed your basis is people who might or might not exist (for the purpose of fairness I’ll presume they do) who unlike me have not suggested Liverpool’s fortune is largely attributable to fortune, favourable decisions and favourable fixtures.


And on that basis despite knowing anything else about how Liverpool is performing you feel confident to predict that you don’t see how they’ll struggle in the games they have to play this month.
Despite how they were second best for at least half of the game against Southampton, how the game before that against Villa…Villa also being in terrible form missed a great number of chances to equalise before the game was put to bed.

That Brighton knocked the living daylights out of them first half at Anfield and it would not have flattered them at all to be two or three nil up.

The dubious penalty decisions against Chelsea and against Southampton without which they probably wouldn’t have won either game.

The failure of awarding us a penalty against them, along with the numerous glaring chances we missed despite sitting back in the second half.

And you will invariably revert back to your “but they must be good, they’ve won 11 out of 13”


The free flowing team that has scored more than two goals in a game on fewer occasions than even we’ve managed

That struggle to put their own chances away and are grateful that their opponents are profligate

Like i say, will see how good they are when they aren’t playing relegation fodder and teams in the doldrums.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Also every game between now and the end of the year should be a must win, regardless of whether we have a 9 point deficit or a 9 point lead. Because they are games we should be winning.

If I appear irritable, it’s because of how ostensibly intelligent people are parroting a media that is utterly in the tank for Liverpool and treating them winning the title as a fait accomplit.

Very silly. Very precipitous

It’s like they are comparing this team to the one under Klopp, which was utterly relentless in the way it forced opponents into mistakes, had boundless energy and could just wear you down and put four or five past you. Compared to that Liverpool team, I state again this is more like a Leicester city

[Letters]

Ok your basis is a league table, a league table will tell you what has happened but nothing about the how or why.

The league table, the overall form they've been in, other conversations I've had with people and things I've read.
They've played 20 games this season in all competitions, won 18, drawn 1, lost 1. I don't need to have watched the games to know that's a team worth taking seriously. You can cherry pick incidents here and there in games where you feel they've got a bit lucky, but over 20 games I call bullshit on those results just being luck or easy games.

And on that basis despite knowing anything else about how Liverpool is performing you feel confident to predict that you don’t see how they’ll struggle in the games they have to play this month.

I wouldn't say I'm very confident - I don't think one should ever be too confident about predictions in football. It is, famously, a "funny old game". But on paper yeah, I think those are mostly games they should win. But they do have a lot of away games coming up so I am of course hopeful they'll slip up here and there and that we can capitalise.

[HCZ_Reborn]

The league table, the overall form they've been in, other conversations I've had with people and things I've read.
They've played 20 games this season in all competitions, won 18, drawn 1, lost 1. I don't need to have watched the games to know that's a team worth taking seriously. You can cherry pick incidents here and there in games where you feel they've got a bit lucky, but over 20 games I call bullshit on those results just being luck or easy games.


I wouldn't say I'm very confident - I don't think one should ever be too confident about predictions in football. It is, famously, a "funny old game". But on paper yeah, I think those are mostly games they should win. But they do have a lot of away games coming up so I am of course hopeful they'll slip up here and there and that we can capitalise.

They have won 11 games out of 13 and a lot of it is down to luck, yet you’re responding as if I’m saying that every game they’ve won is down to luck.

No but they have had great fortune in playing us when they did, and playing city when they did. They got massive get out of jail card against Brighton and Southampton. And the fortune of the four times league winner falling apart at the seams.


Without that luck would they be leading the table at all let alone 9 points clear….its possible but as I keep banging my head on the desk figuratively to make clear, they are no better than last season in my view actually not as good and they have benefited heavily from fortune in their own games, fortune with city’s collapse and fortune with us not winning a single game in four.

I struggle with the fact that, that’s even controversial. I am confounded by their nine point gap only in so far that we should have beaten Bournemouth and Liverpool and that without referee intervention we’d have beaten Brighton and Man City (in my view, there’s no certainty)

Even in the champions league a competition they have rich historical prestige in, I watched their game against AC Milan and I wasn’t especially impressed at all….it was more of an indicator of how poor European teams have become (that’s not a dig at Liverpool either, I think when we won there in 2018 it was more a reflection on how poor they were rather than how good we were as well)


So to paraphrase Mrs Thatcher, you be impressed if you want to….but I’m going to have to see a lot more before I’m especially impressed and not just annoyed at the position we’ve put ourselves in

[HCZ_Reborn]

If you like I can break it down for you

Ipswich (a) - on balance deserved to win but they were distinctly ruffled first half

Brentford (h) - equally deserved to win but also had moments where but for Brentford being poor finishers could have dropped points

United (a) - United were terrible start to finish, 3-0 reasonable reflection of the game

Forest (h) - Liverpool were utterly blunted by Forest, once they scored they never looked like getting back into it


Bournemouth (h) - Comfortable win


Wolves (a) - Made it more difficult for themselves than needed


Palace (a) - Despite dominating early on were holding on at the end and grateful for palace being unable to make anything of their chances


Chelsea (h) - Dubious penalty settled game, when draw would have been fair result


Arsenal (a) - Should have had a penalty given to us, and again missed chances to kill the game off at 2-1, distinctly second best to us


Brighton (h) - Whether this was luck or character depends who you ask but they were played off the park by Brighton first half


Villa (h) - Bit like Brentford, Liverpool had most of the chances but Villa missed a couple of sitters


Southampton (a) - Benefited from a harsh penalty and Southampton committing self harm in defence


City (h) - Definitely deserved win albeit against a Shellshocked City team who decided to put out a questionable lineup



In my opinion, there are probably eight points Liverpool can attribute to good fortune. And unlike us they’ve had no bad fortune to balance it out

[Letters]

I struggle with the fact that, that’s even controversial.

I alluded to other people I talk to about football. You must do the same.
Is your thesis accepted by them or do they all think you're nuts too?

[HCZ_Reborn]

I alluded to other people I talk to about football. You must do the same.
Is your thesis accepted by them or do they all think you're nuts too?

Fuck me I’m suggesting a team has been lucky to get 20-25% of the points it has, it’s not claiming in discredited research that there’s a causal link between the MMR jab and autism.

Most friends I don’t discuss football with full stop because they aren’t interested. My brother doesn’t take issue with my claim about how fortunate they’ve been, but thinks we are more likely to drop points than them (but his mind has been poisoned by living in Liverpool so he cannot be trusted as an impartial individual). Another friend conversely is rabidly anti Liverpool to the point where he claims that due to Covid the season should have been scrapped and that they shouldn’t have been allowed to win the title then (now that is objectively a ridiculous opinion)

I think you talk about my need to be right when this whole futile argument seems to me to be predicated on your need to be right. It’s there in writing that I will have to reassess my view of them as both title contenders or likely title winners if they get past this hurdle. But it’s not enough, I need in your view to state something I don’t believe in the first place that there has been anything exceptional about them this season, I will concede that the Dutchman has been smart…I think the defeat at Nottingham Forest means that he reverted to the blueprint laid down for him by Klopp rather than try to model this Liverpool team in his own image and forcing a relatively more languid style on them.


But again it’s not a giant crazed conspiracy theory that they’ve been exceptionally lucky in a way we haven’t. And that a 9 point gap is not as daunting when you consider their remaining fixtures relative to ours, where I do agree is that a 9 point gap would be undesirable if it’s not eaten away sooner rather than later (when we have much easier fixtures to navigate than them).

[Letters]

Fuck me I’m suggesting a team has been lucky to get 20-25% of the points it has, it’s not claiming in discredited research that there’s a causal link between the MMR jab and autism.

So you haven't gone full NQ then. That's reassuring. One should never go full NQ.
That just feels an improbably high percentage this far into the season is all.

Another friend conversely is rabidly anti Liverpool to the point where he claims that due to Covid the season should have been scrapped and that they shouldn’t have been allowed to win the title then (now that is objectively a ridiculous opinion)

I'd have laughed my moobs off had they declared that season null and void with Liverpool so far ahead but yes that would have been ridiculous.

I think you talk about my need to be right when this whole futile argument seems to me to be predicated on your need to be right.

I'm the one saying I was wrong, pre-season

It’s there in writing that I will have to reassess my view of them as both title contenders or likely title winners if they get past this hurdle.

Well OK. Let's talk again in January. Of course, I hope you're right. I also don't think it's an insurmountable gap but my worry is we can't really afford any slips and we need Liverpool to do so quite a lot relative to how they've started. I don't think they will keep going at this rate, but winning becomes a habit so we need someone to dent that soon to stop their momentum. We are starting to build up some ourselves and we should be able to beat Utd but they're in a bit of a new manager halo so that's a banana skin.

[HCZ_Reborn]

So you haven't gone full NQ then. That's reassuring. One should never go full NQ.
That just feels an improbably high percentage this far into the season is all.


I'd have laughed my moobs off had they declared that season null and void with Liverpool so far ahead but yes that would have been ridiculous.


I'm the one saying I was wrong, pre-season


Well OK. Let's talk again in January. Of course, I hope you're right. I also don't think it's an insurmountable gap but my worry is we can't really afford any slips and we need Liverpool to do so quite a lot relative to how they've started. I don't think they will keep going at this rate, but winning becomes a habit so we need someone to dent that soon to stop their momentum. We are starting to build up some ourselves and we should be able to beat Utd but they're in a bit of a new manager halo so that's a banana skin.

Well it’s not a high percentage in terms of games, it’s saying there are four games from the 13 where they’ve been lucky to get either something or all three points from.


Chelsea, Us, Brighton and Southampton

I think Chelsea deserved a draw, they deserved to lose to us and Brighton and I think Southampton deserved a draw. There are games in the past where we’ve got more points than we deserve to
And I’ve explained why, you can either agree or disagree with the reasons I’ve given for it but, it’s weird to think of it as out there when there’s been an equally similar amount of games we’ve been unlucky with.